I told myself that I could do it;

Page 1

The Crisis in Inner City Confidence
"1 told M
myself
that I. . could
do it"
Fear roams the city streets in many forms, but the most insidious of all is the fear of failure.
When A. Ruth Randall saw that fear in the eyes of classmates at Philadelphia's Opportunities Industrialization Center, founded by the Rev. Dr. Leon H. Sullivan she was more than ever determined to succeed. She had to, with five children and a home to support. She was separated from her husband, she had no prior business experience, and she was on partial welfare.
Trained as a clerk-typist by OIC in 1968, A. Ruth Randall joined the West Nicetown-Tioga Neighborhood Health Center staff, where a unique experiment is being conducted by Temple University to determine if a prepaid health maintenance program can serve the needs of the inner city. Today, three promotions later, she is marketing supervisor for the program's Health Maintenance Plan, which provides supplementary insurance protection to welfare recipients.
Another measure of Ruth Randall is that she has been a student at Temple for the past four years and will attend school full time this summer in order to earn her degree in social work. Four of her five children are now high school graduates, and two have also attended universities.
Yet after spending a day with TEMPO'S editor, some of the fear of failure remains, "Did I do the right thing?" she asks, "Were the decisions 1 made the right ones for my children? Was it right to feed and clothe them well instead of giving them a better environment?" Her own words will help the reader to decide.—RP
The Family
Although we live in North Philadelphia, my children do not think of us as poor; they do not think they are deprived. They think they can do anything, and when I hear them say that I am proud of them. I teach them to love each other and to be close to each other. Because when 1 am gone one day, they will need each other. And who knows more about you and can love you more than the person you grew up with, your brother or sister? Love each other, 1 say, give to each other, stay together. Every Saturday we have our family discussion. I share everything with them. We don't have secrets about money, for example. My children know how much I earn. When the girls wanted a new dress, 1 would show them my paycheck and then all the bills I had to pay; I would tell them that the next week, if there was only the phone bill and the mortgage to pay, 1 would buy them that new dress. My sister used to say to me when the children were small, "Why are you
telling the kids that? They don't understand." But they did understand
I think the bottom of my life came when Kimberley, my baby, had a heart problem and was in the hospital for seven weeks. The doctor wanted to put her in a children's heart hospital for two years. I watched her crying, and I said 1 believed 1 could take care of her myself if I was assisted by a city nurse. The Heart Fund really helped me out, like renting a hospital crib for her, and paying the bills for two years while I stayed home to take care of her and was on welfare—
20